Wednesday, 20 March 2019

CLOSE to 100 truckloads of Zimbabwe’s wheat imports are
holed up in Beira after Cyclone Idai damaged infrastructure and made most roads
impassable.

Chairperson of the Grain Millers Association of Zimbabwe
(GMAZ) Tafadzwa Musarara revealed this after appearing before the Justice Mayor
Wadyajena-led Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Lands and Agriculture.

Musarara had been summoned to give oral evidence on the
procurement of grain and wheat by GMAZ, foreign currency allocations that GMAZ
received from the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) from January 2015 to March
2019. The committee wanted proof of all wheat acquittals, names and contacts of
suppliers and transporters and donations made by GMAZ.

During the committee meeting, Wadyajena alleged that
Musarara had approached senior government officials, the military and
intelligence services seeking protection so that he does not appear before
Parliament.

“I thought the purpose of the committee meeting was for me
to give an update on the wheat situation as we are in another drought period.
Logistics wise, Beira is currently inaccessible with close to 100 trucks of
wheat that are supposed to come to Zimbabwe stuck there. The wheat is now wet
and we thought we were going to share this with the committee,” Musarara said.

“However, there is a ship with our wheat which will be
docking in Maputo and the load will go through Chiqualaquala via Rutenga and
then come to Harare.”

Musarara said the load of wheat from Maputo is expected in
the country in two weeks, adding that bakers were meanwhile only getting 45% to
50% of wheat requirements.

He said the country was growing 200 000 tonnes of wheat
when the requirement was 400 000 tonnes, adding that the country’s wheat was
gristed, implying that bakers would have to mix it with other imported wheat in
order to produce quality bread.

On allegations of seeking protection from the army,
Musarara said: “I do not know anything about it. I was surprised when the
committee chairperson said it. We were going to share with the committee every
nostro dollar that we received. Actually, there is a legacy debt of $8 million
owed to millers and suppliers have stopped supplying us and we have proof of
payment.”

Documents that Musarara handed over to the committee showed
that RBZ released foreign currency to GMAZ on three occasions since 2018. The
first release was $12,45 million, then $2,5 million and $11,18 million to a
company called Drosk Private Limited for onward transmission to other millers.

Musarara said the wheat shipments that they received since
2018 were 65 000 tonnes which came in multiples of 30 tonnes. He could not
produce the contact details of the suppliers and Wadyajena said he still needed
the documents for a meeting rescheduled for April 2.

The GMAZ chairperson claimed he only received the letter
from Parliament on Wednesday and the documents requested could be as much as
145 tonnes of paper, so he had no time to prepare them all.

“We have nothing to hide and we will bring all the
documents,” Musarara said. Newsday